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Medlars

This paper is a work in progress - contact me before citing.

Medlars as a Colonialist Artifact in
Menzies' Journal

c 2018 Paula Johanson

In the summer of 1792, Archibald
Menzies kept a journal during his voyage on Vancouver's ship
Discovery, in which he twice reported seeing medlars on the
Pacific coast of what is now Canada's province of British Columbia.
Though his journal is considered a marvel of botanical accuracy and
is still referenced today in botanical journals and websites, Menzies
was in fact wrong on this point. These small hardy deciduous fruit
trees are common in Europe, but in the 18th century there
were no medlars growing on the Pacific coast. The question of what
trees Menzies did see, and why he mistook them for medlars, can be
answered with a search of his journal in electronic format, and
online resources for medlars (Mespilus germanicus), as well as
two similar trees present on the Pacific coast: Pacific dogwood
(Cornus nuttallii) and serviceberry (Amelanchier florida
or alnifolia).

Online resources for medlars include
historical and cultural references for this fruit tree, planted by
Charlemagne in every city he took over as emperor. Cultural
references for medlars describe them as present in every botanical
garden established by Charlemagne and spreading into uncultivated
lands, yet the fruits were marginalized and an object of scornful
jokes, eaten only when people did not have access to fruits which
were considered superior.

It is worth considering that Menzies
might have called the trees he saw medlars because he thought the
trees were an uncultivated food resource for Kwak'wak'w First Nations
people in that region. He didn't write of seeing anyone harvesting
from the trees he called medlars. His journal entries were written in
June and August, but in summer there are no medlar fruits ready to
harvest – and he would have known that, because he was familiar
with botanical gardens in Europe.

It is likely that Menzies assumed the
trees he saw were medlars because of their visual appearance. The
Pacific dogwood has a large, wide-petalled flower that could be
mistaken at a distance for blooms on a medlar tree, and oval leaves
similar to a medlar. The serviceberry has similar leaves, but its
flowers are smaller and have narrow petals. In one of his two journal
entries mentioning medlars, Menzies wrote of seeing serviceberry as
well, so he was clearly familiar with Amelanchier trees.

It seems that Menzies did not bother
to scramble up steep rocky slopes on that coastline to look closely
at trees that seemed as ordinary as serviceberry and medlar. It is
surprising to imagine Menzies not making that effort, when during
that same voyage he climbed mountains in Hawaii while making
botanical observations. Perhaps climbing these coastline cliffs would
have been just too dangerous for what he assumed were mere familiar
trees. What could be new or interesting enough about these trees to
get him to make a risky climb? Nothing. And because of his
assumption, he did not record observing a new species. When Menzies
wrote of these scrubby trees growing on steep mountainsides as
medlars, it was an indication that he was interpreting the coastal
plant life from a Eurocentric and colonialist perspective.